DD
How to clone an entire hard disk
dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/sdd bs=64K conv=noerror,sync
How to clone a partition
dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=/dev/sdd1 bs=128K conv=noerror,sync
make disk image
dd if=/dev/da0 conv=sync,noerror bs=128K | gzip -c > centos-core-7.gz
restore system
gunzip -c centos-core-7.gz | dd of=/dev/da0
Use remote storage
dd if=/dev/da0 conv=sync,noerror bs=128K | gzip -c | ssh user@server dd of=centos-core-7.gz
See progress while making an image with dd (dd with coreutils)
dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=/dev/sdd1 bs=128K conv=noerror,sync status=progress
copy MBR
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1
Backup MBR and Extended Partitions Schema
dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/backup-sda.mbr bs=512 count=1
sfdisk -d /dev/sda > /tmp/backup-sda.sfdisk
Restore the MBR and the extended partitions
dd if=backup-sda.mbr of=/dev/sda
sfdisk /dev/sda < backup-sda.sfdisk